Unreal Hair Shader and Normal Maps?

[thomasp1234567]

Hi,

does anybody know if it’s possible to plug a normal map into the hair shader?

Right now due to lack of that kind of shading support hair appears pretty flat in thicker clumps. Working around it with the id/unique-value-map somewhat reduces the problem only until the viewing angles get too extreme or until you have low poly geo peeking through the hair cards.

Upping the texture resolution or number of hair cards is no practical solution either I’m afraid. In my experience a normal map simply would make short work of the problem.

I’d be more than happy to cut down on usage of other maps (I don’t need flow, for example) to make this happen.

[anonymous_user_ca8eabf9]

Have you tried depth map? it should solve your problem pretty much. Hair shader is intended to work with depth maps in order to create the depth order of hair strands in a cluster or surface of hair volume.